An Introduction To: White Wolf Yoga

For this 'an introduction to' we bring you White Wolf Yoga, located in the heart of Liverpool city centre with a stunning venue. The team sat down with Louise and Beccy to find out more about White Wolf yoga and their community.

What inspired you to start White Wolf Yoga?

It started when I left school and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I tried a few different jobs but there wasn’t anything I particularly liked. Then I did a yoga teaching course which I quite liked. After that, I started teaching little classes above a pub in town. When I first started I was looking for people to come to my classes so I was dragging my best mates and my family to all of my sessions. The more I did these classes the more I loved it. I decided to go to India to do more training, when I came back I started a bigger class in the camp and furnace. The classes I was doing in this venue where great but the venue was always being used for events so I constantly had to move classes around or cancel them, I was trying to build my classes but there wasn’t any consistency because of this. So I thought about getting my own space and found this venue around 2 years ago.

The name white wolf yoga comes from my love for killer whales. White wolf is the Native American name for the killer whales.

When was White Wolf Yoga started?

I started calling it white wolf yoga when I was in camp and furnace, white was in 2014. When I was in camp and furnace it wasn’t a full-time job, it was just something I would do 3 nights per week, I had another job at the time. The more I did the yoga the less I did the other job and then it got to a point where I was like ‘this is what I want to do 100%’.

What is your favourite type of yoga?

We do mainly hatha yoga here, so Hatha is one of the most traditional forms of yoga. We do that style but with a bit more of a flow, because with traditional Hatha they do in India it’s very like ‘do this, now do that’, there’s no sequence to it.

Is it just the two of you who teach the classes?

Yeah, only quite recently I started teaching with Louise, I worked more on the café side of things. Before that, I was working in a school and Louise asked me to come in and help. I left my job to do this, I loved yoga but wasn’t a yoga teacher until September we went to India for a month. I did my yoga teaching there.

When you go to India for training, what do you learn?

We learn more of the basics; it helps give you a stronger foundation and where to start from. Most people then take that back home and put their twist on it. While I was there I became stronger and learned a full Ashtanga routine, we would get up in the morning around 5 am and do 2 hours of Ashtanga yoga, it was quite intense but you soon get used to it.

Would you say you are both similar teachers?

I’d say we are quite similar, and I think people enjoy that. We don’t have members dreading to come because one of us is taking a class. Our own personalities come out when we are teaching, there will always be that difference in the style, but I think because we have done the same training and we go to each other’s classes we are quite similar now. I would like to do different teachers classes because it helps to gain new ideas for our classes.

What are the benefits of yoga?

It’s good in so many ways, physically but also mentally. It’s really good for building strength in the body but also increasing flexibility. Its brilliant for immunity, there are loads of benefits for the body but also the mind. It helps change your mindset. Help reduce stress.

What would you expect from a typical class?

So we start off with a gentle warm-up, then more hip opening movements we pick up the pace and do more dynamic movements. After this we have a standing section where it’s more strength based, you’ll be holding postures. Then the final part will be down on to the mats where we aim to increase flexibility and the last 10 minutes will be some relaxation.

Do you offer kids classes?

We allow children from the age of 14 onwards to come to our classes, we do get some kids who come now and they have been brilliant.

What types of memberships do you offer?

We have an introductory offer on at the minute which is £30 for 30 days membership; you can come as much as you like in the 30 days. After that we do £7 a class drop in, we do a five-class card for £30 and a 10 class card for £60. The full unlimited card for people who come every day is £70 per month.

What would you say makes you different to any other studio?

We are exclusively none hot; we are the only one in Liverpool that’s none hot. I think it’s good that we have so many studios in Liverpool and it’s good to have a choice, but what I like about ours is that it’s really diverse; we have a good mix of men and women, also a good mix of levels, and a good mix of ages. Anyone can feel welcome here.

Where do you see you progressing in the future?

I would like to take white wolf yoga around the world. If things go really well and you could write a dream of what you could see happening I would have white wolf yoga and our vegan kitchen all around the world. I think we have a good brand and we have the potential to be everywhere.

Louise organised a yoga retreat in November for us to go over to India. There were 25 of us who went over for a week. The place was gorgeous.